Horkheimer and Adorno posited a hidden utopia within reason to explain resistance to demythologization.

Evidence

Both ideas were to be found in Horkheimer and Adorno. There existed for them a secret utopia in the concept of reason'. Those phases of history which did not fit into the idea of an irresistible process of demythologization could then be explained by saying that, in such cases, the anti-authoritarian tendency of enlightenment being acted out within manifest history was still in communication with the utopia in the concept of reason’, `though of course only in a subterranean form’. Adorno and Horkheimer saw manifest forms of genuine, i.e. self-possessed, enlightenment in Jewish religion, in liberalism and in themselves. But how was the genesis of such forms to be explained? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1389

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘secret utopia in the concept of reason’ — Horkheimer and Adorno’s subterranean reserve preserving authentic enlightenment against the dialectic of enlightenment.
• QUESTION: The unresolved question of how the secret utopia originated, left unaddressed in Dialectic of Enlightenment, is worth chasing against later critical theory responses.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno-Horkheimer’s instinct-based utopian critique rested on unproven biological assumptions — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1121; Horkheimer first made thinking itself a form of resistance in 1942 — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 497; Horkheimer saw resistance to enlightenment’s trap as depending on an inner refusal to submit. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1391

Broader Connections

• Adorno-Horkheimer’s instinct-based utopian critique rested on unproven biological assumptions #complicates (0.78) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1121
• Horkheimer first made thinking itself a form of resistance in 1942 #expands (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 497